I read this back in October (my review on this site), but the All-Nonfiction Group chose it for this month. I’ve been rereading it as I truly appreciated the book the first time. Michael Lewis has a way of explaining very complex matters in a very comprehensible way. The Usual government is notoriously complex.

My first review is pretty comprehensive so if you’re interested in the brief story of how Trump is mangling the US government go there. The book is basically a look at how the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce went through their own “transition” periods and have changed for the worse (if you support their viable existence at all).

The Fifth Risk describes the incalculable risk that actual “project management” will be incompetent. Trump has installed Department heads who are, as is Trump, not terribly concerned about effective departments because they don’t like the departments.

I’ll only add to it by saying that Trump seems to be incompetently getting what he and his appointees want done. They’re turning the federal government from what they see as a swamp of massive departments with expensive and debilitating regulations to massive departments whose regulations are ignored, unenforced, or changed on whim and expediency. Trump’s group doesn’t even give them personnel.